In a computer network system, it is conventionally a common practice that an individual opens a homepage to provide content created over the Internet.
In this way, when a user personally opens a homepage, the user acquires a homepage creation program via a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as “PC”), creates a homepage hyper-linked with a plurality of content based on the homepage creation program and stores the homepage in a server of an Internet service provider (hereinafter referred to as “ISP”).
Then, the ISP provides a homepage to a client who accesses it over the Internet from the server and when an anchor on the homepage is clicked, then the ISP provides linked content.
In recent years, content supplied to a client over the Internet include many moving images and voice in addition to still images. To provide content such as these moving images, moving image files and voice files created by the user are uploaded beforehand in a predetermined storage area of a streaming server of the ISP. Then, at the request of the client, the streaming server of the ISP performs stream distribution of the file corresponding to the request to the client over the Internet.
Furthermore, the technique of performing stream distribution of content such as moving images to the client over the Internet also includes a technique called “live distribution” in addition to “on-demand distribution” whereby a moving image file is uploaded in the streaming server beforehand and distributed in response to a request from a client as described above. In live distribution, moving image data created by a content creator, for example, using a digital camera, is encoded in real time and this is sent to the streaming server over the Internet, etc. Then, the streaming server performs streaming reproduction while recording the moving image data supplied in real time from the content creator in a dedicated storage area and can thereby supply the moving image data in real time to the requesting client.
On the other hand, when the above-described live distribution is performed, the content distributor may or may not want the content distributed to be viewed or listened to by many people. Moreover, depending on the content to be distributed, there may be cases where the content distributor may want the content to be viewed or listened to by many people even if live distribution will involve an increase of the expenses, or the content distributor may want to reduce expenses for live distribution even if the content is viewed or listened to by only a few people. That is, the maximum number of viewers or listeners or the expenses that the content distributor desires may vary depending on the content to be distributed, etc., and a service capable of providing live distribution taking into account these situations can be said to be significant to the distributor.